Hey ATS! Don't made it bad. Take a sad song, and make it better.

We are living in a very troubled time right now. There is a huge oil catastrophe going on in the Gulf of Mexico.
There is a major crisis brewing in the Middle East between Israel and most of the rest of the area.
There is racial hatred and profiling going on in several states especially in places like Arizona.
There is fear of a renewed Korean war.

I think you all get my point. The problem I have noticed lately though on ATS, is very few threads or members are actually offering any real solutions or ideas. There is a lot of name calling. Finger pointing. Accusations. Even some unfortunate hatred.

I will be the first to admit, I have also been one to point fingers and accuse. Maybe not at members, but at corporations, the US Government, other governments....

ATS is about denying ignorance. Some of us are ignoring ignorance, or even enhancing it. We need to get together and try to help figure out solutions to some of the worlds problems and then work to get them noticed and possibly even put into action. We don't have to all agree. In fact the freedom not to agree is what allows most all of us to even be on here.

But let's try to work together. I don't always have solutions. Or even ideas for helping some of our problems in the world right now. But some of us are bickering as much as North and South Korea or Israel and Turkey. Infighting and name calling will get us nowhere.

Gonna date myself here, but when I was in college still, my junior year, we took a month long trip to what was still the U.S.S.R. The Soviet Union. The trip was meant as a means of exposing us to other cultures. Cities in contrast. Other ways of life. And it did.
It was January 1989. It was before the Berlin Wall came down. The Warsaw Pact was still in effect. Mikhiel Gorbachev had just started glasnost and perestroika. Openness and restructuring.
We were just a bunch of dumb college kids. Our last night in Moscow. Top floor bar of the Kocmoc hotel. We were all pretty drunk. Had been there for several hours. There was a Russian man who had been circulating between the rooms of the bar playing an accordion. Cultural songs. Russian folk songs. He finally came around to us. He came up and said "I play. You sing." We all looked at each other curiously wondering what we knew about Russian folk songs.
He started playing Hey Jude. We started singing. In the 10-15 mins of in going on...a lot of na na na na's.... we noticed others had joined us. There were Germans. French. Britons. Russians. Chinese. Poles. I counted like 12 or 13 different languages. By the time it was over, that entire room of the bar was singing this song. In English. No one cared about political ideology. No one cared about the Cold War. We took a situation, and for a few minutes anyways, we made it better. We might not have solved all the worlds problems that night or any of them for that matter, but the 50 or so of us in that room took a step in the right direction.

Come on ATS. Let's work together again and take another step in that direction....




[edit on 3-6-2010 by webpirate]

reply to post by webpirate


Consciously-crisp style thead set among uncertainty and fear.

I certainly remember times on holiday when we all ended together, as if by fate, drinking and telling stories in foreign languages. But it was the common body language and the outward expression of positive emotion which cut through all langauge boundaries that made us equal, if only for a limited time.

Anyway, the only solution I have to the problems you cite is the internet itself. Too many people are becomming intellectually pampered and physically unchallenged by spending too much time on it!

You cannot learn something unless you understand the connection between a stimulus and response. We just don't fully get this on the net! Information is abused and people tend to get educated by measuring their knowledge of perception by someone else's absence of same.

Get off the net for a week or a month and get out there as much as possible. Visit another country or read a challenging book. Just try to expand your mind without the aid of pixels! It will refresh your approach, if not your mind.

''We are living in a very troubled time right now''.

I think we are always living in troubled times, as long as Governments have guns and an overabundance of power coupled with the inability to act for and on behalf of their people, there will always be danger.

Hey Jude - have a drink on me!

reply to post by Breifne

I agree. Too much of what people these days know about the world is learned on the internet. Not through personal experience.

I was hoping to use it as a medium to accomplish what I'm referring to here, but your totally correct. Without knowledge outside the net, it's hard to get some points across.

I'm afraid though that too many people don't want solutions. They would rather listen to doom and gloom and spread it. Good news doesn't sell. Only bad news does. I know this is a conspiracy site, but it seems like too many people would still rather live with it, than try to do something about it.

[edit on 3-6-2010 by webpirate]

Man! you really want to teach the world to sing? all tension and ignorance is down to only learning things on the internet lol! I live in the real world and it is a jungle of hatred my friend.
There are many reasons why there still is so much division, the main reason is because of human nature. We as a species are pre-determined to seek out like minded individuals and dislike people who don't agree with our view of the world. There is NO! solution to it, mankind is and always will be tribal.

Its alright for the Beatles to sing "All you need is love" and other such hallmarky slogans but at the end of they day everyone loved them, they never got hated on. They had no clue what it feels like to be stuck in the rat race of life....

[edit on 3-6-2010 by strangleholder1]

Wait a second.
What happened to the F-Bomb?

reply to post by strangleholder1


lol..This really had nothing to do with the Beatles per se. It had to do with people of different nationalities different political and religious backgrounds putting aside their differences for a few minutes and coming together(no pun intended). It was the mood. It was lightened. The mood needs to lighten here....

We really didn't make a difference that night, but we can here I think....if we try and we really want to.

And yes they did get hated on. Just ask John about that after he said they were bigger than jesus.

Wait a minute. You can't do that. The real world got to him and ended him all too soon.

[edit on 3-6-2010 by webpirate]

reply to post by webpirate


Actually Mark david chapman got to him, not the real world as the killer was obviously insane. As for saying "They were bigger than Jesus" well it was true and did nothing but give them bucket loads of free publicity.

Part of the problem is that some artists don't know when and how to shut up and sing because Paul McCartney thinks Obama is greater than Jesus.

Paul McCartney: Lay Off “Great Guy” Obama

Paul McCartney would like President Obama's critics to let him be.

“I’m a big fan, he’s a great guy. So lay off him, he’s doing great,” the British songsmith said on Tuesday, ABC News reported.

Source - NBCWashington

[edit on 3-6-2010 by Alxandro]

reply to post by webpirate

Come on ATS. Let's work together again and take another step in that direction....

I thought the standard song to sing was Kumbaya. But that requires a campfire, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, everyone seems to have missed my entire point here.

Originally posted by webpirate
Unfortunately, everyone seems to have missed my entire point here.

I applaud your efforts my friend. I've been trying to do the same for months, years even, but it seems that people just will not listen, or they miss the point entirely. Don't stop fighting the good fight. I am still hopeful that one day all people will come together as one voice. Until then, we will still have the crap that exists today.

S&F for you, because you are trying to raise awareness.



Peace be with you.

-truthseeker

reply to post by truthseeker1984


Thanks.
It seems like only doom and gloom have been selling here lately though. Especially in the last few months. Even SkepticOverlord tried to get people to rationalize and come together. People don't seem want that though lately.

I was trying to lighten the mood a little bit with a story from my past. One that has always stuck in my mind. A group of multinational strangers in the middle of Moscow during the Cold War. Even those who's countries weren't on good terms putting it all aside.

It's usually the leaders, not the citizens who are the trouble makers for the countries. Lately, it seems some citizens, in the US at least, have been just as bad. Stop fighting each other, and start fighting TBTP more.

[edit on 3-6-2010 by webpirate]

S&F for you, because you are trying to raise awareness.

From here also. I applaud your attitude and wish you success.

Great thread, but as a new member here I see this site as a microcosim of society.
Unfortunately not all the strong are worthy, some are just cowards who hide in numbers.
And some of the weak are in fact the strongest for they stand alone.
The OP may be sane and true but plenty want division and reasons for their unfulfilled lives ie something to blame.
We all visit here for controversy?
To deny ignorance? perhaps
For answers ?
There are plenty of threads that offer answers they unfortunately are ignored ,or the posts contained within are ignored.
To understand an answer one must seek understanding.
There is a big chunk of all of us that seeks the division you describe.


[edit on 4-6-2010 by Dr Expired]